


Fear and Hope (and maybe Faith)

by headphonecables



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:02:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29781375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headphonecables/pseuds/headphonecables
Summary: He saved more than a dozen lives with his healing. He always thought that made the fear okay, somehow. (set some time after Shoin's Institute)
Kudos: 8





	Fear and Hope (and maybe Faith)

He used to be afraid of his god. He told himself it was alright, that that was how he was supposed to feel. This sense of fear, of respect and helplessness all the same, the dread that settled deep in his chest every time he drew on that connection. He thought it was good enough pay for what it allowed him to do. He saved more than a dozen lives with his healing and that made it okay, somehow. The thought that it wasn't just him surviving this time. That he wasn't gonna let any accident take someone away ever again. It was worth it, he thought- and sort of still thinks- but by all accounts it wasn't healthy.

It was guilt that drove him towards the temple, classic survivor's guilt paired with a traumatic near death experience, arguably a very successful way to make someone religious.

He was never very open about his faith. He was never open about his feelings in general, obviously, but he never even talked openly about religion with the other acolytes. Certainly a lot of them seemed to share the hesitation, the fear of their god.  
Zolf hopes they're alright. He doesn't want to think about what might have happened to them specifically in the world as it is right now, with the infections and all that, but he does hope they didn't have to struggle as much as he did.  
He hopes they find their way, whatever that means. He didn't know them that well, it wasn't like he spent a lot of time with them back then.

He has come to terms with his own struggle, somewhat. He and Poseidon are pointedly NOT speaking, he's made that very, very clear.  
He doesn't want the dreams, he doesn't want to feel any connection whatsoever and he can't now.  
There's still history there, obviously and Zolf is certainly not someone to just forgive and forget, but he has stopped caring so much. He's been sailing for a while afterwards and while he has encountered storms he chalks that up to investigating the literally storm-causing Kraken.

He is afraid when he is at sea and at this point all the reasons why blur together into a mess of anticipation and quiet terror. But it's as his superiors way back in the navy told him, every good sailor fears the sea. That's just true, he knows, but what they always failed to mention was that it wasn't enough to just fear it.  
You got to do something about it as well, you have to face it head on and say to yourself that you have more to gain than to lose and if Poseidon decides to drown you, well, then you go down kicking and screaming.  
That's all there is to it, really.

If he's honest with himself, the first time he set out after renouncing his god had almost been a suicide mission. He wasn't actively planning to die but he was pretty sure he couldn't just sail around and have nothing of note happen to him. He did catch the tail end of a storm, but it was nothing compared to previous experience. He didn't even fall off his boat.

A few months had to pass before he could let himself stop caring. He has no clue why he was being let off easy, he had expected some sort of punishment, some sort of due payment. Just... something. The idea that Poseidon treated runaways better than the navy felt off, somehow.  
The conclusion he eventually came to and still maintains is that fundamentally, Poseidon just doesn't care enough. Which is good, just not really what Zolf expected.  
His faith had literally been built on fear and the feeling that he owed some sort of debt.

Maybe he was wrong about that and thinking back, it wasn't like he was actually forced to join the church, it just felt like that to him. Something to get himself lost in, to provide an anchor in the emotional turmoil he was in at the time and to help him come to terms with things. Now he knows it was an unhealthy way to cope, to literally devote himself to the source of his trauma, but well, what is it people say about hindsight?

And besides, he has to admit it wasn't all bad. There was a sort of comfort in being afraid, a comfort that still creeps up at times, especially in the storms he has sailed through. He can't quite explain it, but there's something that feels almost good about facing something that can very easily kill you. There's a mode he can switch to effortlessly in these situations, a mode where the biting self-doubt and all the questions stop. When it's just him and whatever is around him, when he just has to work and hope.

That's the new thing. Hope.  
That's the word that comes closest, though Zolf doesn't like what people associate with it. He's not an optimist on his best days and even calling him a realist is looking through rose tinted glasses he very much does not possess.

It is hope, yes, but hope is not what people think hope is. It's the continous stream of helping, of planning, of searching and of fighting. It's resistance, revolution, but more importantly, it's about continuing, no matter what. It's about thinking about what comes next and trying as hard as you can to get a step further each day.  
It's not thinking everything will work out just because, it's literally dragging and pushing things and fighting and working hard so they will turn out alright. There's comfort in the ways to make things better.

He doesn't really want to know why this allows him to do magic. Why he can just access divine energy with no clear source. When he casts, he still feels a bond, he feels emotions stir inside of him, he feels himself reaching out but he knows enough about the gods to know it isn't one of them.  
He can't give a name to that force, but it seems close to him in a way he's sure none of the gods could really be. They don't care enough to be this close.  
And it just feels too much like himself to attribute it to another sentient being, no matter how powerful and divine.

He doesn't know how that's possible. Sometimes he thinks about it too much and spirals into another crisis, but then he gets to do another thing that improves the world and it gives him that feeling of hope again. And usually he can hold onto it for a while, it can get so powerful it almost overwhelms him.  
But ultimately it's good and he's not afraid because this is his and it can never hurt him. It's there when he needs it, he uses it to help because he can and it helps and the rest doesn't really matter, does it?  
He just keeps looking towards what comes next and what he needs to do. The magic happens on the way and brings a sense of deep and active hope with it, or maybe this feeling is what causes the magic in the first place.

Either way, Zolf is not afraid anymore.


End file.
